Agenda Item Wording:
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New City Website Update - First look at website and details on launch. This item is scheduled for the Work Session; if not completed, it may be continued during the Regular Session portion of this meeting.
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Agenda Date: 03/16/2026
Prepared by: Allison M. Mackey, Communications and Brand Manager, 559-713-4535 allison.mackey@visalia.gov, Shonna Oneal, Administrative Services Director, 559-713-4053 shonna.oneal@visalia.gov.
Department Recommendation: It is recommended that the Visalia City Council receive a presentation on the City’s new website.
Summary:
In August of 2025, the City initiated a comprehensive redesign of its municipal website to modernize digital services, improve accessibility, and enhance the overall user experience for residents, businesses, and visitors. The website redesign project is now complete and is scheduled to officially launch on March 17, 2026.
Background Discussion:
The City’s current website was launched in 2015 and has since become outdated and increasingly inadequate for meeting current standards. Notably, it lacked optimization for mobile devices, presented difficulties in submitting service requests, and did not comply with upcoming accessibility regulations. For these reasons, modernizing the City’s website was both a strategic priority and a regulatory necessity.
At the direction of Council, City staff worked with the vendor CivicPlus to modernize the City's digital presence, enhance access to services, add security features, and foster greater civic engagement with a completely new website.
Goals and Objectives
At the Visalia City Council’s 2025 Workshop, the Council’s Strategic Priorities and Goals were set. Three specific sections of the document have items that are connected to the website process underway. These are 1) Growth and Infrastructure 2) Quality of Life and 3) Governance. At the top of this list is the Governance Year One Objective “Select a new website system and begin the transition of the website to be completed by April 2026. This process will include community outreach.”
As previously reviewed by the Council in the summer of 2025, the overall goals of the project included:
• Replacement of Existing Website: Implement a modern, government-focused website platform.
• Technology Upgrade: Leverage up-to-date web, mobile, and social media technologies to enhance civic engagement.
• User Experience: Create a well-designed, intuitive, and easy-to-navigate website that offers a positive user experience.
• Content Management: Provide a streamlined, user-friendly content management system for staff to efficiently publish and manage content.
• Workflow Automation: Implement electronic review, approval, and publishing processes.
• Information Architecture: Redesign the structure and navigation of the City’s website for improved usability and content discoverability.
• Program Compatibility: Ensure compatibility with existing programs and seamless integration with future tools, particularly those enabling virtual services and community engagement.
• Constituent Relationship Management (CRM): Integrate an updated VisaliaWorks with CivicPlus’ SeeClickFix 311 CRM tool that allows residents to submit questions or service requests and centralizes all related communication, documentation, and task tracking serving as a new digital customer service module.
• Visual Identity: Develop a visually cohesive and brand-aligned website that reflects the City’s logo and color palette.
• Accessibility and Compliance: Ensure full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. This includes review of content quality, broken links and other usability issues, such as color contrast and recommendations on correcting and updating content through AudioEye and Acquia Optimize tools.
• Multilingual Access: Enable content translation to serve non-English-speaking residents and visitors.
• Data Security: Meet security standards consistent with local, state, and federal requirements.
• Content Migration: Migrate all key documents and content from the existing website into the new system.
• Public Records Act Request Management: Allow for the submission and central management of public records requests through NextRequest, the public records request management tool.
• Social Media Management: Archive and oversee multiple official social media accounts through ArchiveSocial, the social media management tool.
Community Outreach and Engagement
Consistent with Council’s direction, community outreach was a foundational component of the redesign process. As requirements for government websites have changed, so have the needs and desires of the community. Community feedback played a central role in the planning and design of the new website.
City staff undertook the following steps to gather feedback that could be folded into the planning of the new City website:
• Survey: Launched in early September 2025, the survey was open for three weeks and included 10 questions. It was available digitally, in print versions and in both English and Spanish.
• Community Meetings: A total of four community meetings were held, where staff made presentations to those in attendance and then hosted “Listening Sessions” to receive public feedback.
• Additional outreach included information on the City website, a press release to media outlets which resulted in earned media in both digital and print outlets, information to community organizations, information sent to all City of Visalia Committee & Commissions and a presentation to the Citizens Advisory Committee, information in the City of Visalia Live & Play newsletter, print materials posted in City offices and lobbies, and coordinated social media posts and details across the City’s social media channels.
• Internal Work: City staff across all departments participated in content audits and workflow evaluations of the current website to identify where operational efficiency and service delivery could be improved.
The feedback received was shared with the City New Website Committee, which is comprised of staff representatives from each City department. The valuable input provided by the public was then used in working with our project partners at CivicPlus on designing and building the new City of Visalia digital home. Utilizing CivicPlus allowed the City to consolidate several independent initiatives into a single, efficient platform managed by one vendor. This consolidation streamlined staff responsibilities, reduced costs, and improved service across the organization.
Feedback received through these efforts directly informed the website’s structure, homepage layout, service-based navigation, and accessibility features.
A New Website, “A Better Way of Living”
City staff and CivicPlus have successfully completed development, content migration, quality assurance testing, and accessibility review of the new City of Visalia website. Staff have finalized training on the new content management system to ensure departments can independently maintain and update their information.
The new website will officially launch on March 17, 2026, providing residents with:
• A modern, clean design aligned with the City’s identity
• Improved search functionality
• Simplified service-based navigation
• Enhanced accessibility features
• Mobile-optimized performance
• A City website that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.
The completion of the City’s new website represents a significant investment in improving communication, transparency, and service delivery for residents, businesses, organizations, visitors and our greater community. The new website reflects input from residents and staff, aligns with current best practices, and positions the City for continued digital innovation.
A Living Platform
While the technical redesign phase of the project is complete, it is important to emphasize that a municipal website, or most any website, is never truly finished. The City of Visalia website is a living, dynamic communication platform that must evolve alongside community needs, service delivery enhancements, regulatory requirements, and technological advancements.
Post-launch, City staff will continue to:
• Update content to ensure accuracy and timeliness
• Monitor analytics and user behavior
• Refine content and navigation based on user feedback
• Maintain accessibility compliance
• Expand digital services and self-service tools
The launch of the new City of Visalia website marks the beginning of a new phase of our communications efforts and is focused on continuous improvement, rather than the conclusion of the effort.
Staff respectfully present the newly redesigned website to the Council and look forward to its official launch on March 17, 2026.
Fiscal Impact including annual maintenance and operating costs: There is no fiscal impact tied to the launch of the website. The website implementation cost was budgeted for $75,000 in a capital project. The CIP will fund Year 1 (FY 25/26) of this project’s cost of $74,805 (CIP 3880-72000/CP0762-999), which includes a promotional discount of $47,726.00. Annual maintenance cost for Year 2 is 114,506.00, Year 3 is $120,232.00, Year 4 is $126,243.00 and Year 5 is $132,555.00. The five-year total is $568,341.00. Years 2-5 (FY 26/27-29/30) will be funded in the department’s operating budget which will be included in future budgets.
Prior Council Action: 9/2/2025: Received update on new City website planning process and community outreach for resident feedback. 6/16/2025: Authorized the City Manager to enter into a (5) year service and software license agreement with CivicPlus for web services, including a new website, 311 resident service request system, public records request management system, social media monitoring and archiving, and accessibility monitoring, piggybacking the General Services Administration (GSA) Contract GS-35F-0124U, for a total of $570,000. 1/11/2025: Set Strategic Priorities and Goals that included Governance: Communication, Information & Feedback Year One Objective “Select a new website system and begin the transition of the website to be completed by April 2026. This process will include community outreach.” 12/16/24: Council approved appropriating funds for the remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) projects. The approved projects included the website refresh.
Alternatives: Direct City staff to hold on the launch of the new City website or otherwise extend timeline for launch at a future date.
Recommended Motion (and Alternative Motions if expected):
recommendation
No motion required.
Environmental Assessment Status: N/A
CEQA Review: N/A
Deadline for Action: 03/16/2026
Attachments: 1) New City Website Unveiling PowerPoint
Strategic Goal: Indicates which City Strategic Goal(s) this item supports. Check all that apply.
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☒ Economic Vitality |
☒  Organizational Excellence |
☐ Fiscal Strength |
☒  Infrastructure & Growth |
☒  Quality of Life |